The Last of the Light
by prepare4trouble
Summary: Several months after he and Kanan were blinded at Malachor, Ezra begins to realize it is time to accept what has happened and move on. Prequel to 'In One Piece'


_A/N - This story is a prequel to a fic I wrote a few weeks ago called In One Piece. That was set in the future of an AU where both Kanan_ and _Ezra were blinded at Malachor. Despite the premise, it wasn't angsty, it was actually pretty hopeful and light. Being the angst vampire that I am, I had to go and angst it up! While by that point in the future where the other fic was set, they had reached a point where they were okay, it was inevitable that getting to that point wouldn't have been easy._

 _When I filled that original prompt on SWR Requests, over on Tumblr, I had no intention of writing more, though I did end up noting down a bunch of thoughts from the AU. Some of those thoughts bubbled and brewed away in my head and turned into another story set in that universe. There might even be more to come, if it happens again._

* * *

The days were all warm on Atollon, but this one in particular had been stifling. Planetside, the engines on the Ghost were switched off, and without them, the air didn't circulate through the filtration system that held the temperature constant in space. As a result, the ship, designed to conserve heat and therefore energy in the cold of space, had quickly grown almost unbearably warm. **  
**

Hera wafted her hand in front of her face, forcing the air to move in little, useless ripples before her. She had been tempted to fire up the engines, if just for a few minutes' respite from the heat, but to do so would have been wasteful; they had a finite amount of fuel, and to burn through it while parked inside an atmosphere would have been an unnecessary drain on resources.

And so they had all been driven outdoors, seeking the shaded areas, and the buildings that some engineer had had the forethought to fit with cooling systems that didn't require starship fuel. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than nothing.

The evening had brought some respite; as the sun had begun to sink below the horizon, the wind had begun to pick up, bringing some much-needed airflow. She took a deep breath, and even inside the Ghost, the air smelled of dust from the ground outside, but opening the door had allowed the cooling air to circulate, and she was hopeful it would cool enough to allow her to sleep in a few hours.

Right now, however, sleep was the furthest thing from her mind.

She climbed out of the access hatch, leaving it open behind her, with the intention of allowing a little more airflow through the ship.

She found Ezra right where Kanan had told her he would be, sitting on the top of the ship. His legs were bent at the knee, and his arms wrapped loosely around them; he stared, or appeared to stare, out over the landscape of the planet and toward the setting sun. His hair rippled in the breeze, and she realized that he had allowed it to grow a little longer than he was used to. So had Kanan, now she thought about it.

She wondered how he had found his way up there; whether he had taken the same route that she had, up the ladder and through the access hatch, and how easy he had found that, whether he had had help, and how long he had been there. She wondered whether he had brought a canteen with him, whether he had had enough to drink in the heat, whether he was wearing enough UV blocker. She wondered, but she didn't ask. She was very conscious of not appearing that she was fussing over him; he had made it very clear that he didn't like or want that.

Still, she might have chosen one of those questions, simply to make conversation, if it hadn't been for the thoroughly dejected look on his face and the way his entire body appeared to slump as though he was being forced to carry a burden much too heavy for him.

He was, of course They all were. But his had grown the past few months.

He turned toward her up as she approached, and for a moment she felt as though he was looking at her, until she came a little closer and could see the way his gaze didn't quite focus. He knew she was there, of course. He would have heard her, and he could probably sense her presence through the Force, but if he could see her at all – and she wasn't clear on exactly what he could and couldn't see – it was only as a slightly darker spot against the brightness of the sunset.

He cocked his head a little to one side, an unconscious gesture, one that she had seen Kanan do too on occasion. She hated that; not the gesture itself, but that she found herself drawing comparisons between the two of them. It was something that she caught her mind doing independent of her permission.

Her feet slowed on the metal exterior of the ship as she approached him. Suddenly, she felt as though she might be intruding. It couldn't have been easy for him to find his way up here, and it wasn't something he would have done if he wanted company. Ezra had been distant since he and Kanan had returned from Malachor. They both had, but Ezra moreso, somehow, because even when he was there, it felt as though he was elsewhere.

Although Kanan was, understandably, unhappy, it felt to her as though he had accepted it what had happened to him. He was having trouble learning to adjust, he was withdrawing, spending more and more time alone, meditating, but at least he /was/ adjusting, or trying to, after a fashion. At least he recognized that that was something he needed to do. Ezra was still deep in denial, waiting for an improvement that he had already been told wasn't going to come.

She continued to approach, because he was waiting for her now, and to stop and turn away now would be cowardice, and would be taking advantage of the fact that he probably didn't yet know who she was. When she reached his side, she lowered herself down onto the flat surface of the ship. The metal exterior was warm to the touch, heated by the rays of Atollon's sun.

"It's a…" she began. 'Beautiful evening', she had been about to say. But he wasn't up there watching the sunset, despite appearances to the contrary. Anyway, it wasn't even true, and the reds and yellows in the sky evoked a painful memory for her now; the last night she and Kanan had spent together before everything had changed. She sighed. "What are you doing up here?" she settled for instead.

Ezra had turned back to the sunset. He didn't bother to face her, speaking out into the desert instead, into the glow of the setting sun. "Nothing," he said, and made no attempt to elaborate.

Hera settled in next to him, and watched as the sun sunk further into the horizon. The sky was seemingly on fire with reds and pinks and yellows, and she had been wrong the first time; it was beautiful. It just hurt that Ezra couldn't share in it with her.

As the reds began to fade into purples, Ezra finally turned away. She wondered whether he had reached the extent of his vision, whether the colors he sometimes claimed that he could see had faded into darkness. He sighed deeply, leaned forward and rested his chin on his knees..

"I think…" he said, and then stopped.

Hera felt herself holding her breath, frozen in the moment, both anticipating and dreading his next words. When Kanan had directed her up here, he had sensed something from Ezra, but hadn't elaborated on what it might be. Perhaps he hadn't even known what it might be. It should have been Kanan that was here with him, and it was a testament to his own feelings of inadequacy that he was not.

"It's not going to get any better, is it?" Ezra asked quietly.

Relief clashed with sorrow, and for a moment she wasn't sure what to say. For months he had refused to believe that, he had insisted time and time again that he was seeing improvements where the medic told him there was none. He had kept himself in a holding pattern, waiting for the moment when he would be able to see again, instead of beginning to deal with the fact that he wouldn't.

She turned her attention briefly back to the sunset. The sun had almost completely disappeared now, leaving behind a deep red glow, like an echo of the day. "No," she said. "I'm sorry, Ezra, I don't think it is."

He sighed deeply. "I'm such an idiot," he said quietly, speaking into the night. "I should have just listened to…" he stopped, and silence passed between them. Even down on the ground below them there was no sound from the base. It felt as though there was nobody else for miles around.

"You're not an idiot," Hera promised him. There was nothing wrong with hope, it was what kept them going every day. But at the same time, she was glad. Not that he had lost hope, but that he might now be able to turn it in another direction. "I broke my arm when I was eight," she heard herself saying. "The doctor insisted it was just a sprain, but my father insisted it was broken. Who do you think was right?"

Ezra frowned, confused by the sudden change in topic.

"The point it, medics aren't always right. You were right to question what they said, up to a point. There was nothing wrong with keeping hope."

"I don't think this is like that," Ezra told her.

"No," Hera agreed. She placed a hand gently on his shoulder. "I don't either."

They lapsed once again into silence, neither sure of what to say next.

"Are you okay?" Hera asked after a moment. It was a stupid, pointless, and possibly even cruel question, and she wanted to kick herself the moment the words left her lips.

Ezra turned to face her, lips slightly parted, like he had opened his mouth to speak before he had decided what to say. Finally, he gave her half a smile, and nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Of course."

Hera didn't reply. They both knew it was a lie, and they both knew there would be no benefit to either one of them to expose it. They sat together in silence as the last of the light drained away.


End file.
